News
2006-10-12
Four men arrested
in attack of New York gay man
Arrests made in
New York City attack
Four men who
allegedly lured a gay man to a remote pickup spot
Four men who
allegedly lured a gay man to a remote pickup spot in New
York City to rob him only to see him hit by a car after
he tried to escape were arrested Tuesday night. The
men, all of whom are 20 years old or younger,
apparently had approached the victim online and promised to
have sex with him but upon meeting him tried to rob him
instead—an incident that is being investigated
by police as a hate crime, Newsday reports.
According to police, the victim, 28-year-old
Michael Sandy of Brooklyn, agreed to meet his alleged
attackers Sunday night after exchanging e-mails about
having sex. But when Sandy, a designer for IKEA, showed up
at the meeting spot, a parking lot for a public park in
an outer part of the borough popular for cruising, he
was set upon by the men in an attempted robbery.
In response, Sandy inadvertently fled into
traffic on nearby Belt Parkway, where he was hit by a car
and seriously injured. He remains in critical
condition on a respirator at a local hospital.
The alleged attackers, who say they are
heterosexual, have made incriminating statements to
police, even suggesting they had tried to lure and
attack gay men online in the past, Newsday reports.
Several witnesses have already been interviewed by
investigators from both the New York Police
Department's Hate Crimes Task Force and the local detective squad.
Democratic state senator Carl Kruger of Brooklyn
announced there would be a $1,000 reward in the case
and vowed to take measures to prevent such an attack
from happening again. "It was originally intended to be a
family gathering place, a recreational facility for the
community," Kruger said of the park where the incident
took place, according to Newsday. "Through the years
it evolved into nothing more than a snake pit of
illegal activity." (The Advocate)
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